One knows what a boy of that stamp has to suffer at public schools, and a Court is after all not very different from an academy.
Such being the temper of his mind, Tasso at this epoch turned his thoughts to bettering himself, as servants say.

His friend Scipione Gonzaga pointed out that both the Cardinal de'Medici and the Grand Duke of Tuscany would be glad to welcome him as an ornament of their households.

Tasso nibbled at the bait all through the summer; and in November, under the pretext of profiting by the Jubilee, he traveled to Rome.

This journey, as he afterwards declared, was the beginning of his ruin.[22] It was certainly one of the principal steps which led to the prison of S.Anna.
[Footnote 20: _Lettere_, vol.iii.p.

164, v.p.